Usability Report

📝 Today we are exploring results from our usability tests performed in class. We categorized the issues into three types: severe, moderate, and trivial. We plan to address all of them, focusing on severe and moderate ones.

🤯Severe

1. The different colors (white and gray cards) in the catalog page are confusing; The weekly view of the cards display looks arbitrary, what if some days’ entries are missing? 
   1. Solution: Removing dates from previous and succeeding months and use a more consistent color coding across different views of the catalog; Reorganizing the weekly view of cards so it looks more logical
2. The streak sign at the top of the screens have unclear meanings (“maybe it means the number of the screen?”) more explanations are needed
   1. Solution: use wording like “ # of journal cards created” and add “?” next to the streak sign
3. The home icon is confusing with the “My” button 
   1. Solution: change the home icon to another icon for the catalog entry
4. People may miss the right arrow at the top to save the journal entry. The editing functionalities look like options not flows, that’s why it’s hard to navigate when to save the entry
   1. Solution: add an explicit “save” button upon journal entries’ completion
5. People want to learn more about the benefits of gratitude journaling. The “my” page looks blank with only two blocks
   1. Solution: add “learn more” entry during onboarding and in “my” page
6. Users did not know they can swipe in the catalog and the mood tracking report pages.
   1. Solution: show more of the cards to the left and right of the calendar so that users know the affordance of swiping.

😩Moderate

1. People get stuck on the date picker interaction, because they dates can be clicked-on but no actual feedbacks on the functions 
   1. Solution: Maybe add more screens to allow more interactions with the calendar component
2. For card design, how long can I see the whole combination? How different will the designs be?
   1. Solution: add necessary explanations 
3. For the mood tracking page, it’s unclear what the number 1-5 on the y-axis mean 
   1. Solution: Add different faces to visualize different affect levels
4. It’s hard to see what day it is today in the monthly view of the catalog 
   1. Solution: add a special icon to indicate the date of today – small fix, we will do it
5. Expect specific dates after clicking on a date
   1. Solution: Re-design the catalog pages, maybe removing the weekly review
6. Wish there are back buttons when clicking into the mood tracking page from my profile page 
   1. Solution: add a back button

🤔Trivial

1. Lack of brand recognition: the name of the app “Jappy” only showed up once at the beginning screen
   1. Solution: add “Jappy” in my profile page
2. First look: The page is saying gratitude journaling is helpful but I’m not sure what I can do with the app 
   1. Solution: Add more instructions
3. The monthly catalog page is a bit dull, maybe adding emojis to the calendar can have users reminded of their journals for particular days? 
   1. Solution: we can optimize the page but maybe emoji is not necessary
4. The mood tracking chart is not enough for representing complicated mood 
   1. Solution: Add more dimensions to mood tracking, make the feature optional